Affordable Prince George offers family balance

Gordon Hoekstra, Vancouver Sun02.15.2013

Greg Halseth sits high above the city of Prince George. A resident for two decades, Halseth says the city is a big enough community that it has all the amenities you could need or want, but not so big that it suffers any loss of small-town friendliness and appeal.

Mark Clark, who moved to Prince George in the 1970s, caught this steelhead on the Morice River on a day trip west of Prince George. Clark says it is not hard to find solitude in the region’s back country.Mark L. Clark

Aerial view of Prince George, where you can drive from one end of the city to the other in 25 minutes.D&J Huber
/ Vancouver Sun

A reception for new students in the atrium of the University of Northern British Columbia’s medical building. UNBC is one of Prince George’s two post-secondary schools. The other is the College of New Caledonia.Gerry Kahrmann
/ Province

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It was the winter of 1994, and the Halseths had recently moved to Prince George.

Greg Halseth’s pregnant wife Regine was running some errands with their two young daughters when their car broke down at an intersection.

Immediately, some young men helped push the car to the side.

Then a woman in a minivan also pitched in, giving Regine a ride home, even stopping along the way to the Halseths’ home to let her do an errand.

If they had any doubts about their choice to move from the Lower Mainland — where Halseth was teaching at Simon Fraser University — to come to Prince George for a new job at the University of Northern B.C., they evaporated following that incident.

“It’s the size of the place, people know each other. But even if they don’t, they’ll lend a hand. It’s a nice sense of community. So we knew right away, this is a good fit,” said Halseth.

After nearly two decades in B.C.’s “northern capital,” they’ve had no regrets.

Prince George is a big enough community that it has all the amenities you could need or want, but not so big that it suffers any loss of small-town friendliness and appeal, observes Halseth, a UNBC geographer and author.

You can drive from one end of Prince George to the other in 25 minutes.

While they were raising their children, that allowed more time for the Halseths to get their two daughters and son involved in activities such as swimming, dance, horseback riding, judo, baseball and soccer.

Halseth notes it take just seven minutes to get from his garage to his office door at the university, where he is an expert on small-town economies.

He notes he can get home from work, load up his canoe and be at a nearby lake in 30 minutes.

Located at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers on the province’s Interior plateau, the city has grown into a northern centre for a multitude of services: education, health, banking, transportation and entertainment.

With a population of about 75,000, Prince George serves the surrounding communities of Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, and Quesnel, but has an even farther reach economically as a supplier for mines and other industrial projects in northern B.C. and Alberta.

In addition to UNBC, the city is also home to the College of New Caledonia, which offers extensive trades and technical programs.

Specialist medical services are provided by the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia and the recently built BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North.

Sport attractions include the Prince George Cougars, a major-junior hockey team in the Western Hockey League, and the community also boasts the Prince George Symphony and Theatre Northwest, Canada’s most northern professional theatre.

The CN Centre, which is home to the Cougars, has also been the venue for big-name musical acts, including Elton John, KISS, Avril Lavigne, Nickelback and Willie Nelson.

The outdoors is always close by. There is a system of river trails along the Nechako and Fraser rivers in the city’s core, but more hiking and mountain biking is available on the city’s outskirts at the 106-hectare demonstration forest, Forest for the World, which connects to more trails at UNBC and the Otway Nordic Ski Centre.

In the winter, there are cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, downhill skiing and ice fishing options.

There are more than 1,600 lakes, rivers and streams within an 160-kilometre radius of Prince George.

Mark Clark, who came to the city in the late 70s, says the back country is not crowded. If you head out fishing, and find someone at one lake, you can just move over to the next one, he says.

It’s not hard to find solitude, says Clark, who grew up in Mission.

Like many others, Clark first came to Prince George for a job.

He was a forester for Northwood (since merged with Canfor) for 20 years before he started his own consulting company. He also operates a woodlot with a partner, which combines 200 hectares of private land with 600 hectares of Crown land.

Clark’s latest consulting contract is for Thompson Creek Metals Mount Milligan gold and copper mine, which is under construction about 145 kilometres northwest of Prince George. Clark is heading up a fish habitat compensation project for the mine, in a perfect example of how Prince George acts as a service centre for the region’s economy.

While it was a job that first attracted Clark and his wife to Prince George, where they have raised their daughter, it was the quality of life that kept them. That’s included a nice house for a reasonable price, and not having to deal with traffic.

There is winter to contend with in Prince George, acknowledges Clark, but even that builds a kind of resilience and friendliness into people.

The coldest months are December (when the average low temperature is -10.1 C), January (-11.8 C) and February (-8.3 C).

“Everybody has to fight against the weather, therefore the rest of the problems are a little easier, perhaps, to agree on,” Clark said.

Three decades after Clark moved to Prince George, Justin Speer moved from Richmond for a job as a banker with Integris Credit Union.

After he watched real estate prices climb in the Lower Mainland, and faced increasing congestion in Metro Vancouver, Speer was looking for affordability and more time for family and recreation.

Excited about the fact you could buy a nice home for $300,000, Speer and his wife laughed when a realtor showing them the house they eventually purchased told them it was quite far away from the city, with a 15-minute commute to downtown. Speer’s daily commute in the Lower Mainland took as much as two hours and 45 minutes.

The fact Speer likes to hunt and fish didn’t hurt the family’s decision to move, but he notes another consideration was the city’s size, and that it had many amenities found in larger cities.

Retail services include all the name big box stores, including Cosco, Home Depot, Canadian Tire and Walmart.

After five years in Prince George, Speer has settled into a life that includes a home that backs onto forest where moose and black bears can be seen

He gets to spend lots of time with his now nine-year-old son, which includes riding dirt bikes and snowmobiles. He’s become involved in a business organization that’s trying to revitalize the downtown and he coaches baseball.

Speer said he’d never return to the Lower Mainland.

“I smile when I say it — it’s probably the biggest thing about Prince George — you can do as much as you want with your family without a huge time commitment. It’s just so easy, everything is so close, and there are so many things to do.”

Prince George at a glance:

Figures are for 2011 unless otherwise noted

Population: 75,828

Employment rate: 68.8 per cent

Unemployment rate: 6.7 per cent

Average income: $40,559 (2009)

Average household income: $73,591 (2006)

Average house price: $246,484

Value of non-residential construction: $59.6 million

Business incorporations: 297

Post-secondary institutions: University of Northern B.C., College of New Caledonia

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